Chapter 13. "Ennobled By The Reflected Story Of Another's Goodness And Love"

________________________________________________
_ CHAPTER XIII. "ENNOBLED BY THE REFLECTED STORY OF ANOTHER'S GOODNESS AND LOVE"

It was on a Saturday, three weeks after Mrs. Hunter's return, that Elizabeth asked to make her first visit with the baby.

"Aunt Susan was here so much while I was sick, John, that I feel that we must go to see them to-morrow."

"Oh, my goodness!" John replied, stepping to the cupboard to put away the pile of plates in his hands. "I'm tired enough to stay at home."

They had just finished washing the supper dishes together, and Elizabeth considered as she emptied the dishpan and put it away. She had been refused so often that she rather expected it, and yet she had thought by the cordiality with which John had always treated Aunt Susan that he would be reasonable about this visit now that she was able, and the baby old enough to go out.

Elizabeth was never clear about a difficulty, nor had her defences well in hand upon the first occasion. With those she loved, and with John in particular, any offence had to be repeated over and over again before she could protect herself. She felt her way slowly and tried to preserve her ideals; she tried to be fair. She could not tell quickly what to do about a situation; she took a long time to get at her own attitudes and understand them, and it took her still longer to get at the real intentions of others. As she brought out her cold-boiled potatoes and began to peel them for breakfast, she reflected that Aunt Susan had come as regularly to see them as if she had always been well treated, until Mrs. Hunter's coming. At that point the visits had dropped off.

"Baby is nearly three months old, and I promised Aunt Susan that I'd take him to see her the first place I took him. We owe it to her, and I'm not going to neglect her any more. We can leave a dinner of cold chicken and pies for the men, and I'll get a hot supper for them when I come home. I'd like to start about ten o'clock."

It sounded so much as if it were all settled that the girl felt that it really was.

"That leaves mother here alone all day, and I'm not going to do it," John returned with equal assurance.

"Mother can go with us. I should want her to do that, and I'm sure Aunt Susan would."

Mrs. Hunter was passing through the room with the broom and dustpan and paused long enough to say pleasantly:

"Don't count on me, children. I'll take care of myself and get the men a hot dinner besides. I'd just as soon."

"We'd like to have you go, mother, and I'm sure Aunt Susan would want us to bring you," Elizabeth replied with a little catch in her breath. If Mrs. Hunter refused to go, John would not take her if she begged on her knees.

"No, I don't want to go. I'll get the dinner though, and you needn't hurry back." She went on upstairs contentedly and with the feeling that she had arranged the matter to everybody's liking.

"Let her get the dinner then," Elizabeth said, exasperated. "I'll leave everything ready for it."

"I shall not go and leave her alone all day. She has a hard enough time out on this farm without getting the feeling that we care as little as that for her comfort. Besides that, the buggy is not mended yet."

"We can go in the lumber wagon. We didn't have a buggy till long after we were engaged," Elizabeth said, not going into the matter of leaving his mother at home, which she knew would be useless.

"I should think you'd want to rest when you did get a chance. You talk all the time about having too much to do," John replied evasively.

"I wouldn't get any rest," Elizabeth replied quickly. "I'd get a dinner--that's what I'd have to do if I stayed at home. I'd be on my feet three solid hours and then have to nurse the baby. That's the rest I'd have."

"The devil!" was the answer she got as John went out.

The weeks flew past, and still Elizabeth served hot dinners and mourned in secret over Susan Hornby's neglected kindness. Aunt Susan had been cheerful as well as discreet during those weeks when she had helped them. She had been so happy over the evident friendliness of John Hunter that she had felt sure that the old cordiality was to be resumed.

After what seemed to Elizabeth endless weeks, a curious circumstance aided her in getting to Aunt Susan's in the end. Mrs. Hunter, who was not greatly concerned about her disappointment, heard constant reference to Mrs. Hornby's assistance at the time of the baby's coming, and knowing that there would be discussion of their neglect to her in the neighbourhood, joined authoritatively in Elizabeth's entreaty the next time it was mentioned, thereby accomplishing through fear of gossip a thing which no amount of coaxing on Elizabeth's part could ever have done, and at last the trip was to be made.

Susan Hornby's home was so unchanged in the year that Elizabeth had been gone that, but for the baby in her arms, she could hardly have realized that she had been away. Aunt Susan sent her to the bedroom with the wraps when they were taken off. It was the same little room the girl had occupied for half that year, the same rag carpet, the same mended rocking chair which had come to grief in the cyclone, and the knitted tidy which the girl herself had made. With the hot tears running down her cheeks the girl-mother threw herself upon the bed and buried her face in the baby's wraps to stifle the cry she was afraid would escape her. In the sanctuary of her girlhood's highest hopes, Elizabeth sobbed out her disappointments and acknowledged to herself that life had tricked her into a sorry network of doubts and unsettled mysteries. For the first time she sunk her pride and let Susan think what she would of her prolonged absence, and went openly to the kitchen to bathe her face in Nathan's familiar tin basin. A sudden suspicion of John's reception at Nathan's hands made it possible to go back to Aunt Susan with a smile on her lips.

Indeed, Elizabeth's suspicions were so far true that they were a certainty. Nathan, by Luther's marriage to a woman the old man suspected of every evil, had cut himself off from every friend. Nathan had been thrown in upon himself and had pondered and nursed his suspicions of all men, and of John Hunter in particular. He finished the milking without offering to go into the house; and John, who had insisted upon coming at night instead of on a Sunday, was obliged to stand around the cow stable and wait, or go to the house alone. He chose the former course and was made happy by the arrival of Jake, who had not known where his employer was going when his team was hitched to the wagon.

"I've just been over to Luther's, Mrs. Hornby," Jake said when they finally stood around Aunt Susan's fire. "Did you know Sadie was sick? Luther's awful good to 'er, but I know she'd be glad t' see a woman body about once in a while."

"Wisht she'd die an' get out of th' way," Nathan Hornby said bitterly. "A body could see Luther once in a while then 'thout havin' 'is words cut up an' pasted together some new way for passin' round."

No one spoke, and Nathan felt called upon to defend his words.

"I don't care! It's a God's pity t' have a woman like that carry off th' best man this country's ever had, an' then fix up every word 'is friends says t' him so's t' make trouble."

Nathan's whole bitter longing for companionship was laid bare. Elizabeth's eyes filled with tears; Elizabeth was lonely also.

The call was a short one. John moved early to go home and there was nothing to do but give way. It was not till the next day that Elizabeth suspected that Nathan's remarks had offended John Hunter, and then in spite of her eagerness to keep the peace between the two men, she laughed aloud. She was also somewhat amused at the insistence on a call upon Sadie which John wanted that she should make. The perfect frankness of his announcement that Luther was a convenient neighbour, and that they must pay neighbourly attention to illness, when he had never encouraged her to go for any other reason, was a new viewpoint from which the young wife could observe the workings of his mind. Something about it subtracted from her faith in him, and in life.

While she was still washing the dinner dishes John came in to discuss the visit. Elizabeth was athrob with the weariness of a half day spent at the ironing table, and to avoid dressing the baby had asked Mrs. Hunter to take care of him.

With no other visible reason but his customary obstinacy, John insisted upon the child being taken.

"I've got to get back early and get the coloured clothes folded down. Every one of the boys had a white shirt and two or three collars this week, so I asked mother to keep him for me," Elizabeth said.

"Now see here," John argued. "Mother 'll fold those clothes and you can just as well take him along and make a decent visit. They're the nicest people in the country, according to some of the neighbours."

Elizabeth's laugh nettled her husband. When he appeared with the wagon, she was ready, with the baby in her arms.

The wind was keen and cold, the laprobes flew and fluttered in derisive refusal to be tucked in.

"Take the buggy in and have it mended the next time you go to town," she said, with her teeth chattering, as they drew near to Luther's home. "I want to go up to see ma before long and it's almost impossible to keep a baby covered on this high seat." She thought a while and then added, "I haven't been home since I was married."

"I shouldn't think you'd ever want to go," John replied ungraciously.

Tears of anger as well as mortification filled her eyes, and her throat would not work. It was to stop gossip as much as to see her mother that the girl desired to make the visit. The world was right: John was not proud of her.

The sight of the "shanty" as they turned the corner near Luther's place brought a new train of thought. Dear, kindly, sweet-souled Luther! The world disapproved of his marriage too. He was coming toward them now, his ragged overcoat blowing about him as he jumped over the ridges made by the plow in turning out the late potatoes he had been digging.

"You carry the baby in for Lizzie, an' I'll tie these horses," he said, beaming with cordiality. "Got caught with Sadie's sickness an' let half th' potatoes freeze 's hard 's brickbats."

It was so cold that Elizabeth did not stand to ask about Sadie, but turned to the house to escape the blast.

"I'll come for you at five if I can get back. I'm going over to see about some calves at Warren's," John said as they went up the path.

"Is that why you insisted that I bring the baby? You needn't have been afraid to tell me; you do as you please anyhow."

"H-s-sh! Here comes Hansen," John Hunter said warningly, and turned back to the wagon, giving the child into Luther's arms at the door.

Luther Hansen cuddled the child warmly to him and without waiting to go in the house raised the white shawl from its sleeping face for a peep at it.

"We lost ours," he said simply.

The house sheltered them from the wind, and Elizabeth stopped and looked up at him in astonishment.

"You don't mean it? I--I didn't know you were expecting a child, Luther. I'm so sorry. I wish I'd known."

The expression of sympathy escaped her unconsciously. Elizabeth would always want to know of Luther's joys and sorrows.

A glad little light softened the pain in his face, and he looked at her with a steady gaze, discerning the feeling of sound friendship behind the words.

"I believe you are," he said, expressing the confirmation of a thing he had never doubted. "I ain't askin' you any questions, Lizzie, I just know--that's all."

With something like a glow about his heart, he opened the door of his simple dwelling. He had never doubted her, nor believed the nonsense he had heard about her, but he had just had his faith refreshed. He carried the baby to the one little bedroom of his house, scuffing a wooden rocking chair behind him across the rough floor. He established Elizabeth in it beside Sadie, and then placing the sleeping child in its mother's arms went back to the potato field, hurrying his work to finish before dark. He understood in a measure why this was Elizabeth's first visit to them, and he did not resent it. Luther never resented. He lived his own kindly, industrious life. If people did not like Sadie he accepted it as a fact, but not as a thing to be aggrieved about. He could wait for Sadie to grow, and others must wait also. In the meantime, Luther watched Elizabeth and desired growth for her; her smallest movement was of interest to him. Elizabeth as a mother was a new feature. He remembered the deft way she had nestled the baby to her as he had relinquished it a few moments before, and thought with a sigh, of the cowhide-covered trunk filled with little garments under the bed by which she sat. Not even Sadie knew what the loss of that first child meant to Luther. A new love for women's ways with babies grew up in him as he thought of Elizabeth's cuddling.

In the house, Elizabeth was getting into touch with the young mother who was childless. Sadie, in spite of a determination not to do so, was warming to that touch reluctantly. After all, it was pleasant to be telling Elizabeth about it, and to have her asking as if she wanted to know.

"Yes--I took bad about a week ago," she was saying. "I'd been kind of miserable for several days. I got a fall that last rain we had, an' I didn't seem t' get over it."

"I'd have come sooner if I'd known it," Elizabeth said, thinking of Luther's acceptance of a similar statement. "Jake didn't even tell us last night what was the matter."

"I guess he didn't know. Would you 'a' come if you'd 'a' known, Lizzie?" Before Elizabeth could reply, she continued, "Ma used t' think it'd be kind o' nice for me t' live close t' you, but I knew you wouldn't never come t' see me. I used t' be kind o' jealous cause Luther liked you s' much. I said everything mean I could think of about you, t' him--but law! Luther ain't got no pride. He don't care. He defends you from everybody, whether you come t' see us 'r not."

It was a curious little confession and one Sadie had not intended to make. Something big and sweet in Elizabeth had forced it from her. It embarrassed Elizabeth Hunter, and it held things which could not be discussed, and she turned the subject without answering.

"When did you lose the baby?"

"Oh, it only lived a couple of hours. You see it was too soon an'--an' it wasn't right. Th' doctor didn't expect it t' live as long as it did, but Luther would have it that it could, an' kept 'em a tryin' everything that could be thought of."

Sadie's voice died away gradually and she lay looking out of the window retrospectively: the last two weeks had brought food for much thinking.

"I didn't know, Lizzie, that a man could be as good as Luther. I'd always kind o' hated men, an' I thought I'd have t' fight my way through, like th' rest of th' women, an'--an'--he's that good an' thoughtful of me, an' of everybody else, that I'm clean ashamed of myself half th' time. He nearly had a fit when' he found out that I'd slipped with that wood. 'Twas ironing day, an' th' box got empty--an' then, when th' baby died, it just seemed as if he couldn't stand it."

She looked up at Elizabeth earnestly: "I never heard any one but th' preacher pray out loud, Lizzie, an'--an'--somehow--well," she stumbled, "Luther prayed so sweet, when he see it was gone--I--I ain't thought of much else since. It--it seemed like th' baby'd done something good t' both of us."

The spiteful, pettish face was for the moment ennobled by the reflected glory of another's goodness and love. Elizabeth caught a glimpse of a condition which makes heaven here upon earth. There was the harmony here in the "shanty" such as she coveted and strove in vain to establish in her own home. Of course there would be harmony where Luther Hansen was concerned: Luther was harmony. Ignoring his part in the little drama, she was wise enough to touch the other side of the story in her reply.

"These little ones bring blessings all their own, Sadie," she said, giving the hand on the patchwork quilt a little squeeze.

There was that in the impulsive little touch which was to be a lasting reminder to Sadie Hansen that Elizabeth Hunter responded to the things which were making of her life a different story. They had found common ground, where neither scoffed at the other.

"Did your baby make you feel that way?" she asked earnestly.

* * * * *

When Luther came at five o'clock to say that John was waiting he found them, at peace, with the baby between them.

Luther tucked Elizabeth and her child into the unprotected wagon seat with concern.

"This wind's a tartar. Pull th' covers down tight over its face, Lizzie. What's become of th' buggy, Hunter?"

Luther saw Elizabeth's face harden in a sudden contraction of pain, and glanced across at John, but whatever there was about it that hurt belonged to Elizabeth alone, for John Hunter pulled at the flapping laprobes without seeming to have heard clearly and evidently thinking that the remark was addressed to his wife. Dusk was falling, and Luther watched them drive away with a premonition of trouble as the night seemed to close in about them. He turned his back to the wind and stood humped over, peering through the evening at their disappearing forms. He saw Elizabeth snatch at the corner of the robe as they turned into the main road, and dug his own hands deeper into his pockets with his attention turned from Elizabeth and her possible trouble to that of the child.

"Hope th' little feller don't ketch cold." He turned to the house filled with his vision of a baby being cuddled close in a mother's arms, and with a new understanding of the comfort of such cuddling. His breath flew before him in a frosty stream when he entered the kitchen, and he hastened to build a fire and set the teakettle on to heat. He lighted a lamp and set it on a chair, and also stirred the fire in the little stove in Sadie's room before he went to milk.

"Wisht Lizzie'd come oftener. Wonder why she don't. She don't seem near as stuck-up as she used to. Say, Luther, Lizzie told me th' queerest thing: she says th' way a mother feels before a baby's born makes a difference. She says if a woman's mean before a child comes It'll make th' young one mean too. She told a lot of things that showed it's true, about folks we know? I wonder how she learns everything? Ain't she smart! I wisht she'd come oftener. Say, if I ever get that way again----" The sentence was unfinished.

"Wisht ours 'd 'a' lived," Luther said longingly.

"Did Lizzie's baby make you feel that way too?"

Luther went to milk with a song in his heart. The little word "too" told more than all the discussions they had ever had. Sadie had not been pleased about the coming of the child they had lost.

"If I could get 'em together more," he said wistfully. "It was a good thing t' have 'er see Lizzie an' 'er baby together. I hope th' little Tad don't ketch cold. That laprobe didn't stay tucked in very well."

As he rose from milking the last cow, his mind went back to his visitors.

"Somethin' hurt Lizzie about th' buggy 'r somethin'--she's too peaked for her, too."

Luther's premonitions about the Hunter baby were only too well founded. The cold was not serious, but there was a frightened skirmish for hot water and lubricants before morning. The hoarse little cough gave way under the treatment, but the first baby's first cold is always a thing of grave importance to inexperienced parents, and Elizabeth knew that her chances of getting to go home, or any other place, that winter, were lessened. Her growing fear of neighbourhood criticism outgrew her fear of refusal, however, and at the end of the next week she reminded her husband that she had planned to take the child to see her mother.

"You may be willing to take that child out again; I'm not," he replied severely.

* * * * *

A bright idea struck Elizabeth's imagination after she had gone to bed that night. Why not ask her own family, the Chamberlains, Aunt Susan's, and Luther Hansen's to a Thanksgiving dinner? She was so elated by the idea that she could hardly get to sleep at all, and before she could settle herself to rest she had killed in her imagination the half dozen or more turkeys she had raised that season. A big dinner given to those who could act as mouthpieces would silence a lot of talk; also, it would take away a certain questioning look the girl feared in Luther's and Aunt Susan's eyes. The latter was the sorest point of her married life, and the conviction that they were thinking much worse things than were true did not make her any more comfortable. All Sunday she planned, and Sunday night went to bed with the first secret thought she had ever harboured from her husband's knowledge.

Mrs. Hunter entered into the plan with zest when on Monday afternoon it became necessary to tell her. She had begun to love her son's wife in spite of her family history. Had Elizabeth known how to manage it she could have made of John's mother a comfortable ally, but Elizabeth, with characteristic straightforwardness, sought no alliance except the natural one with her husband. The two women planned the articles to be served in the dinner, and then turned to the discussion of other preparations about the house. Elizabeth was proud of the home of which she was a part, but her strength was limited since baby's coming, and after looking about her critically decided that there would be no necessity for any more cleaning than the regular weekly amount.

"We'll have to get the cleaning done on Wednesday instead of Friday, but I think that will be all that will be needed. The carpets were put down fresh the week before you came home, and I don't intend to take them up again till spring."

"I think so," Mrs. Hunter agreed, "but You'll have to have the curtains in the dining room washed, and the tidies and pillow-shams done up fresh."

"Now, mother!" Elizabeth exclaimed, "don't begin to lay out work I can't get done. The tidies are not hard, and I could do the shams, but those curtains are not to be thought of. I'd be so tired if I had to go to work and wash all that, after the washing I put on the line to-day, that I just wouldn't be able to get the dinner on the table Thursday. Talking about the dinner, I think we'd better have two turkeys. I can roast two by putting them in the one big pan."

Mrs. Hunter was willing that the younger woman should prove her talent as a cook, but she planned to take some of the necessary things upon her own shoulders, and to take her son into her schemes for brightening things up a bit. Accordingly, the next morning she asked John to help her take the curtains down.

Elizabeth had been so full of her own plans that she had forgotten to tell John's mother that she intended to keep them secret till she had all her preparations made. The next morning when she heard the thud of some one stepping down from a chair, and her husband say: "There you are! How do you happen to be taking the curtains down at this time of the week?" she realized as she had never done before how much afraid of him she really was, for her pulses bounded, and her ears boomed like cannon, long before John had time to appear in the door to inquire who was coming, and why they were to do so.

With a look very much like guilt, Elizabeth told over the names of her proposed guests, but with Mrs. Hunter in the next room she could not tell him why it meant so much to her to ask these people to dine with them.

The customary protest was offered without delay.

"I don't believe I'd do it, dear. Thanksgiving is a day for home folks, not neighbours, and, besides, see all the work it will make."

"The work is just what we choose to make it. If I'd known mother was going to clean house I wouldn't have said anything about it," Elizabeth answered sullenly.

"Sh!" John Hunter said in a low tone and with a look of anger that was direct and full of meaning.

Elizabeth was ready to cry. She was angry. In every move she made she was checkmated; not because it was not a good move, but because it was hers. She could readily have given up any one thing as it came along, but the true meaning and spirit of these interferences were beginning to dawn upon her. However, once more she yielded to the unreasonable wishes of her husband and the dinner was given up. She made no attempt to finish the mincemeat they had planned to chop after dinner, but after putting the baby to sleep threw a shawl about her and slipping out of the house ran to the barn and down the creek in the pasture while John was helping his mother rehang the freshly ironed curtains.

They were only having two meals a day now that the corn was all picked, and dinner came so late in the afternoon that there was already a blaze of sunset colour in the west as she passed around the barn and started down the bank of the stream. The sun had set, but was still reflected on the heaps of billowy gray clouds just above the horizon. It made the snow in front of her a delicate pink. The girl had not got far enough from the house to see a sunset for months. The freshness and keenness of the air, the colours in the sky, the grandeur and sublimity of it all chased away her anger and left her in a mood to reason over her situation. She followed the cow-path down to the bed of the stream and then threaded her way along its winding route for a greater distance than she had ever gone before. A broken willow barred her way after a time, and she climbed up on its swaying trunk and let her feet dangle over the frozen streamlet below. The snow made lighter than usual the early evening and extended the time she could safely stay so far from the house.

The colours faded rapidly from the sky and the bewildered girl returned to her own affairs, which were puzzling enough. Of late she had found herself unable to maintain her enthusiasm. She found herself increasingly irritable--from her standpoint the one thing most to be despised in others and which she had supposed most impossible in herself. There were so many unforeseen possibilities within herself that she devoted her entire attention to her own actions and impulses, and was completely drawn away from the consideration of the motives of others by her struggle with the elemental forces in which she found herself engulfed. The temper aroused by John's objection to her Thanksgiving company had indications in spite of the fact that she had controlled it. Elizabeth knew that she had but barely kept her speech within the limits of kindliness and consideration for Mrs. Hunter, who had not wished to frustrate her plans at all, and she knew that she would be less likely to do so if the offence were repeated. She knew that Mrs. Hunter tried with real honesty of purpose to keep on good terms with her, and yet she also knew that she was increasingly annoyed with whatever she did. There was an element of unfairness in her attitude toward the older woman which alarmed her.

"I'm just like pa, after all," she thought as she swung her feet and looked in a troubled way down at the frozen stream below.

Elizabeth reflected that when Aunt Susan, or Silas, or Luther Hansen came into the house she became instantly her own buoyant, optimistic self: not that she intentionally feigned such feelings for the benefit of her company, but she felt the presence of trust, of faith in herself and her powers. She did not recognize that such trust was necessary to the unfoldment of character, nor even that it was her birthright.

The girl watched the gathering twilight and deliberately let the time pass without attempting to return to the house until compelled to do so by real darkness, realizing that some beneficial thing was happening in her in this free out-of-doors place, for she was less annoyed and more analytical with each breath she drew in it.

"If only I'd take time to do this sort of thing I'd be more as I ought to be," she meditated when she had at last risen to go home. "I won't be like pa! I won't! I won't!" she reiterated many times as she walked back, over the frozen cow-path. "I'll come here every few days. Ma and pa were born to be happy, only they never took time to be."

And though John was cross because the baby had cried in her absence, Elizabeth felt that she had been helped by getting away from him. She accepted her husband's reproaches without reply, and was able to forget them even while they were still issuing from his mouth. She kept her temper down all that week, and though the Thanksgiving invitations were not sent, she cooked the dinner and put as many hours into its concoction as if she had had all the people she had hoped to have about her board to eat it, and she was so sunny and natural as she served it that John did not even guess that she was governing herself consciously. She stayed at home the next Sunday and the next, and John Hunter was unaware that she was endeavouring to surrender herself to his will.

"She'll get over wanting to run somewhere all the time," he told his mother, and Mrs. Hunter, to whom these people were not pleasing, agreed with him, and thought that it was just as well if it were so, not realizing that the girl lived alone in their house and that she might have an attitude toward these people distinctly different from theirs.

This winter, like the preceding one, passed with Elizabeth at home. There was no peace to be had if she thought of going anywhere for any purpose whatever. Elizabeth went nowhere and required few clothes. The cold the child had caught on that first trip to Luther's was sufficient excuse to prevent any further foolishness on the part of its mother. However, a trip to town was in waiting for Elizabeth Hunter and was proposed by John Hunter himself.

There had been a "warm spell" in the month of February and John had asked Elizabeth to help him with the pump in the barnyard, which had been working badly for days. It was Saturday evening, and Jake and the other hired man had been granted time off that day; the pump had refused to work at all after they were gone, and with a hundred cattle waiting for water it was necessary to impress any one available with the duty of helping. Elizabeth was more than willing to help: it meant a couple of hours out of doors. They had worked industriously and their efforts were about crowned with success when Mrs. Hunter came out to them with the baby wrapped in a warm shawl. John tossed aside the extra piece of leather he had cut from the top of an old boot and fitted the round piece in his hand about the sucker.

"Now, mother, you shouldn't bring that child out here; You'll have him sick on our hands again," he said.

"Oh, lots of children go out of doors in winter. I took you out whenever I wanted to, and you've lived to tell the tale," his mother said easily, seating herself on the end of the trough.

"Well, I don't want anything to happen to him for a few days, I can tell you. I want you to keep him and let Elizabeth go in to town with me and sign the mortgage on this eighty, Monday," John replied, examining the valve with great attention.

"Why, I thought this eighty was already mortgaged!" Mrs. Hunter exclaimed.

"Well, it is," John replied uneasily, "but I've got to raise the interest before I can get that bunch of shoats ready to sell, and I've got to do it that way."

He did not look at either of the two women, but kept himself very busy about the rod and sucker he was manipulating.

Mrs. Hunter seldom remarked upon anything that was done about the farm, but this was surprising news. A second mortgage on part of the land! She had just opened her mouth to speak, when she happened to glance across at her daughter-in-law. Elizabeth's face was white. Something in it implored Mrs. Hunter to go away, to leave them to have the matter out together, and the older woman took her cue from it and went with a haste which caused her son to look up from the piston with which he fumbled.

"She's gone to the house; I motioned to her to go," Elizabeth announced. "She don't know much about mortgages, but she knows this won't do. You told me last week that the hogs would be ready in time. My soul alive, John! do you realize what you are doing? This is the home-eighty! What's happened to the hogs?"

"Say, look here! If I want to mortgage this eighty, I'm going to do it. Those hogs are just where it pays to feed them. If I sell now, I'll lose half the profits."

John got up and faced her ready to fight, if fight he must on this question. He had chosen an opportune time to tell it, but he meant to do as he wished about those hogs and the land and whatever else they possessed. He hated to open a discussion, but he did not hate to continue one after he had made the plunge. He had feasible reasons for all that he did.

Elizabeth saw that he meant to insist and she resented the deception he had practised in securing this loan without telling her, but the danger was so great that she could not afford to let her feelings blind her, nor to put the thing in a bad light by seeming to wrangle about it. She looked at him steadily, so steadily, in fact, that John was disconcerted. The work in hand gave excuse for withdrawing his eyes and Elizabeth watched him arrange the knot of the rope so that they could lower the pipe back into the well. The girl did not begin to speak at once: she marshalled her forces and considered what manner of argument she would put forth. She knew that every piece of land they possessed except the Mitchell County pastures was covered with one third of its value in incumbrances. If the interest was hard to meet now, what would it be three years hence? She had come to understand that the man she had married was not a farmer. She helped him lower the long pipe into the well, and watched him try the pump handle to see if the sucker would work. It was slow in drawing, and she filled a small pail from the trough and poured it into the pump head. After a few sputtering strokes the water began to come freely, and then she had to wait for the pumping to stop before she could make herself heard above its rumblings.

John Hunter knew perfectly well that Elizabeth was waiting and prolonged the work till the great trough was full. When it began to overflow and there was no further need for drawing water, he turned abruptly toward the gate where the cattle were. Elizabeth had waited in the frosty air till she was chilled from standing and could not remain for the stock to drink before she had a chance to go to the house.

"I want to talk to you before those cattle come out here," she said, more hurt by his avoidance of her now than she had been by the original deception; he was really ignoring her as a factor in their mutual affairs. "I have to protest against this mortgage, John. We ought to keep a small home free at least, and instead of putting more on this eighty we ought to sell enough of the stuff to pay off on this part. Every farmer in this country has his nose on the interest grindstone, and my life has been spoiled with it ever since I can remember. Please, dear, let's not put a second mortgage on this eighty."

In her anxiety to get John's attention Elizabeth went forward and put her hand on his arm, forgetting in her earnestness the slight he had just shown toward her in ignoring her claims to a voice in the matter.

John Hunter shook off the detaining hand impatiently.

"If you're going to run this business you may as well do it without my help and I'll quit," he said, his body braced away from her with the plain intimation that he preferred that she should not touch him.

Elizabeth hesitated. Her impulse was to turn and leave him without further words, but the farm, their future comfort, the whole scheme of family peace and harmony depended upon obtaining a hearing.

"I don't want to run things--really, I do not. I've never tried to, but I've lived on a farm, and I know how impossible it is ever to raise a mortgage if you get it on a place. I--let's sell enough to raise the one we have on this eighty while we can, instead. I'm willing to live on a little; but, oh, John, I do so want to have one place that is our own."

"There's money in those cattle," John answered sullenly. "A woman don't know anything about such things. You'll go and get mother started on it too, I suppose. I'm going to do as I see fit about it, anyhow. I know there's money to be made there."

With a great sob in her throat, Elizabeth turned to the house.

"Look here, Elizabeth," John called after her peremptorily.

Elizabeth stopped respectfully to listen, but she did not return to his side. John waited, thinking she would come to him.

"Cattle ain't like ordinary farming," he argued with a flush of anger. "A man simply has to take time to let steers grow into money. We haven't been at it a long enough time. Those big steers will be ready to feed this fall, and corn's going to be cheap. We'd be cutting off our noses to spite our own faces to sell now."

"Perhaps," the girl replied bitterly, and went on to the house.

She knew that John had argued with the hope of getting her to admit herself in the wrong, not to hear her side of the case.

John Hunter gazed after his retreating wife in vexed petulance for a moment and then, with a sigh of relief, turned toward the waiting cattle.

"She'll be ready when I want to go to town all the same," he reflected. _

Read next: Chapter 14. Mortgages Of Soul

Read previous: Chapter 12. "Pore Little Woman"

Table of content of Wind Before the Dawn


GO TO TOP OF SCREEN

Post your review
Your review will be placed after the table of content of this book